Las Vegas — Before the winner of NHL’s most valuable player award was revealed Wednesday night, somebody asked Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon: Which of the three finalists would you vote for: Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings? Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils? Or yourself?

“What kind of question is that?” MacKinnon replied. “I’ve got no idea. … It’s not for me to vote.”

MacKinnon is good at putting the biscuit in the basket. But does he blow smoke? Never.

Yes, he has become one of the league’s elite players, like Sidney Crosby, who grew up in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia (population 25,161), just as MacKinnon did. But act important? There’s not an arrogant bone in MacKinnon’s body.

It was Hall, not MacKinnon, who took home the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP. And Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers beat out MacKinnon in a vote of his peers for the Ted Lindsay Award, as most outstanding player. On an evening when the NHL honored 16 members of the Humboldt Broncos who died in a bus accident this year, MacKinnon said his life is far too blessed to be disappointed.

The goal for MacKinnon is bigger than being named MVP. He’s grateful for one truly great season, leading the Avs back to the playoffs. But the way MacKinnon sees it, his 39 goals and 58 assists from last season represent only the beginning.

“I want to have a career of those good seasons,” MacKinnon said.

At age 22, he’s just getting warmed up. MacKinnon wants much more. His goal: a decade of Avalanche dominance.

“Hopefully, it’s full of wins and Cups,” he said. “We have a lot of good young players. I hope it’s a good next decade as a team.”

Yes, MacKinnon made reference to winning Stanley Cups. Note the “S” at the end.

Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg, legends of Avalanche hockey, won two NHL championships together in Denver. They are also the lone players to score 100 points in an NHL season while wearing Colorado’s burgundy sweater. Forsberg did it twice, while Sakic broke the barrier three times, most recently in 2007.

The next Avs player to do it will be MacKinnon. If he scores 100 points next season, Colorado will earn at least 100 points in the Western Conference standings, guaranteed.

But that’s my big prediction, not big talk by the Avalanche’s superstar. In Cole Harbour house of Graham and Kathy MacKinnon, there was one primary sports rule:

Never blow smoke. Skate fast, but don’t run your mouth. Keep the game simple. And fun.

“I never blew smoke up his butt,” Graham MacKinnon told me as he entered the NHL awards gala at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

At age 2, MacKinnon was running around the house wearing hockey skates. The house in Cole Harbour had carpet, not hardwood floors. Thank goodness.

“So my dad put me on the ice for the first time, when I was 2½ years old. And I never looked back from there. He probably just threw on the skates to see if I liked it. I was never miserable going to the rink as a kid. I loved it,” said MacKinnon, who loved it so much he would be wide awake at dawn, pulling on gear for practice before his parents could pour that first cup of coffee.

From the jump, MacKinnon skated circles around the kids in Cole Harbour. At the atom level, he scored 200 points in 50 games. Are you kidding me?

Nevertheless, the family rule held: Never blow smoke.

“My parents put a stick in my hand. They motivated me every day — my dad, especially. We’re very close. And we still talk all the time about my decisions, my life and my game,” MacKinnon said.

He always worked diligently on his craft, without prodding. It probably helped that MacKinnon was a natural-born artist on the ice. With gratitude, he calls it a gift. Drafted No. 1 overall by the Avalanche in 2013, MacKinnon scored his first NHL goal as a precocious 18-year-old. The game was easy. Until it wasn’t.

The intersection of immense potential and superstar production did not meet until MacKinnon’s fifth NHL season. What finally made it all click? “The mental side of the game,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “He’s a guy that plays the game with great passion, but sometimes in the past, that emotion would get the better of him.”

Taking the Hart or Lindsay hardware back to Colorado? It would have been sweet. Real sweet.

The Stanley Cup, however, is the trophy MacKinnon really wants.

“That’s what we all play for,” said MacKinnon, before walking out into the neon glare of the Vegas strip. “And hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.”

In response to an eight-game losing skid, the Avs have climbed back in the Western Conference playoff picture by producing points in six of their last eight games -- a stretch capped by Wednesday night's 7-1 victory over the Central Division-leading Winnipeg Jets at the Pepsi Center.

The Avalanche's lines in Wednesday night's game against the Winnipeg Jets will again look as if coach Jared Bednar drew names from a hat. There is a method to his madness, however, and Bednar wants to stick with what helped deliver a 3-0 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.